“When Christ returns then so will perfection be granted to the children of God (Romans 8:21-23), and then we will know God as well as we are known of God Who has given us His magnificent and abundant love and His divine charity to enjoy our lives with Him and with one another. His love energizes our believing in order that we may receive His many hundreds of recorded promises. Our believing can bring the hope of Christ’s return into a lively assurance of his imminent and eminent return at any moment of any day. When our hope, Christ’s return finally comes, then we will be like him for we will see him as he is and be as he is– I John 3:1-3.” ~LMJ~

The greatest expectation that the believer has is the return of his or her Savior who is Jesus Christ. When he returns, we will be gathered up with him to enjoy our eternity with him at God’s own right hand.

Philippians 3:20 – For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:

“Our conversation” means our citizenship because our homeland is in heaven! With our heavenly standing in God’s family we may earnestly look with great hope for our Savior who is the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice that the verse does not say to pray for him to come because his return will happen on God’s timetable rather than on man’s timetable. The word “look” means to wait with patience and expectation. I know that many Christian people fear this great and glorious day, but that is only because they have a wrongful fear of the greatness of Christ’s return for us. Some people are indeed fearful of the future wrath; however, God’s children do not, will not, and cannot pass through the impending wrath that is surely to come. In Philippians 3:20 our Lord Jesus Christ is called “our Saviour” because we have been saved, not for the wrath of God, but for heaven itself and to be eternally immersed in the love of God! The word “Saviour” in reference to Jesus Christ means that he himself accomplished our salvation and our complete spiritual wholeness. We will be in heaven before wrath and tribulation ever begin (I Thessalonians 4:13–5:5).

Philippians 3:21 – Who {Jesus Christ} shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things {all believers} unto himself.

The words “vile body” means a body that has been humiliated. The human body was originally perfect in every detail, having eternal life within its very nature before the fall of man in Genesis. It was the Adversary (the Serpent) who defiled and humiliated the human body of man from its original perfect creation, and with the return of Christ our bodies will be “fashioned like unto his {Christ Jesus’} glorious body.” When Christ Jesus awoke from the dead after his crucifixion he had a new and glorious body, which would never be humiliated again, that will never die again, and that will last him for eternity. This is the kind of body promised to believers!

Jesus was a perfect man, he had no sin in his body, neither was his body humiliated until he allowed himself to become sin for us and be brutally tortured and crucified. He indeed received humiliation and he experientially knows the hold the sin nature still has in man because he himself experienced this so that he could identify completely with humanity. Although our human body is still humiliated, we have been given great hope in the return of our Savior, and then we will receive heavenly life-regenerating bodies equally as powerful as what Jesus now has. He literally walked (or passed) through walls, appearing and disappearing in the midst of his disciples at will; he passed through the heavens and back in the blink of an eye, and was only recognizable to his disciples when he wanted to be recognized. This glorious body will be given to us, and is why the Scriptures say that we can look with great expectation for that great and glorious day of his return, and our gathering together up to him.

“Our belief and confession in the resurrection affords us salvation (Romans 10:9-10), and a vibrant part of our salvation is our lively hope of receiving a glorious future that is still kept in store and reserved by the power of God for us (I Peter 1:4).” ~LMJ~

“The hope of humanity is in the return of Christ to appear with him in glory, always has been and always will be our hope until Christ returns for our gathering together up to meet him above in the clouds! However, for now our God has given us the assurance of our heavenly standing in glory with Christ at God’s own right hand (I Peter 1:7), which is recorded throughout His Word. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory– Colossians 3:4.” ~LMJ~

Once God’s healing Word begins to permeate our hearts, and our thoughts begin to reflect that which is written in the Scriptures, then we will begin realizing that we have indeed received the actual Word of life from the heart of God. Paul said in Philippians:

Philippians 2:12 – Wherefore, my brethren, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

The believers were obedient to the Word of life, irrespective of whether Paul was there personally watching over them, because the Word itself began to uplift them. The Word of God was changing them from the inside, out, for God’s Word is pure (Psalm 12:6). The word “salvation” does not relate to our already God-given salvation, but rather salvation means to be made spiritually whole and entire. The Word of life freely gives to us inner spiritual completeness as we continue to accept it with a believing heart that they are God’s words. The words “fear and trembling” literally means to have reverent respect for the Word of life, and to become obedient to the words that will bring our hearts closer and closer to God’s heart. We become ever more connected to our heavenly Father and His Word of life proportionally to our inner respect and obedience from belief of the Scriptures. Verse twelve shows us what we can do for ourselves, while verse thirteen (below), shows us what God can and has done for us, giving to us not fear and trembling, but good pleasure to walk hand in hand with our Savior and with our heavenly Father.

Philippians 2:13 – For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

One way that God works within us is through His words that we have placed within our minds. God works via two specific avenues. The first way is to help us have the “will” to do His good pleasure and since God designed life and gave us freedom of will – His words in our mind can be the inspiration and energy of our wills. The second way is that God also gives us the spiritual ability “to do” that which will give both God and us glory and “good pleasure.”

Philippians 2:14-16a:
-14: Do all things without murmurings and disputings:
-15: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke {from God}, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;
-16a: Holding forth the word of life;

To do “all things without murmurings and disputings” is a great way to live, for we need not have any fear as we daily walk before our heavenly Father. We are totally “blameless and harmless” before His loving eyes. Indeed, we are the “sons of God” and although we live in a spiritually perverse society, we today do “shine as lights in the world.” In the Scriptures the word “sons” is an all-inclusive noun for male and female. Then, God’s Word shows us a wonderful privilege, and that is: that we may enjoy a completeness within our own hearts, and walk within the good pleasure of the words of God that are both light and life, and they are freely given to us to share one with another.